The project has three parts: (1) a scan of the field, identifying practitioners of needs-responsive, community-driven tech and the basic characteristics, best practices, and models that define their work, (2) a convening of practitioners at the Chicago Community Trust in April 2015, and (3) a book, documenting our investigation of the space and civic tech tactics and strategies that refocus the work on people.

Criteria

In order to inform the scan of the field, I developed a series of criteria for evaluating whether a project meets the standard of being needs-responsive and community-driven. To prioritize people and build with them is to:

Start with people: Work with the real people and real communities you are part of, represent, and/or are trying to serve

Cater to context: Leverage and operate with an informed understanding of the existing social infrastructure and sociopolitical contexts that affect your work

Build for best fit: Develop solutions and tools that are the most useful to the community and most effectively support outcomes and meet needs

Prove it: Demonstrate and document that community needs, ideas, skills, and other contributions are substantially integrated into — and drive — the lifecycle of the project

Beyond direct application to the Experimental Modes initiative, my goal in creating these criteria was to define the leanest standard possible for translating the idea of “with” to a series of identifiable practices that can be used for further investigation, accountability, and guidance outside of this project.

As we push this conversation — and active experimentation — forward, our next steps focus on sharing modes of existing community co-construction with high-value lessons and patternable best practices.We’re also organizing a convening of practitioners, so shoot me note if your work/projects you know of meet the criteria above.